Daniel Kelly: Key To Getting In The NFL

Daniel Kelly is a former NFL Scout - NY Jets to be exact. His book "Whatever It Takes" is out now, and you can check it out HERE.

I wanted to write an article that could
help anyone who is trying to get into the National Football League in
any capacity. The key is doing something
different that separates you from the competition. You
have to get outside the box. This is half the battle and if you think
it’s impossible to get in, trust me, if I could get in, anyone can
do it. You just have to do things a little bit differently than how
everyone else does them.

I’ll never forget when I was sitting
in Tony Dungy’s office when he was the defensive coordinator of the
Minnesota Vikings. There were piles of VHS tapes sitting in the
corner. When I asked him about all the tapes, he said, “They’re
just dreamers.” When I asked what he meant by this, he popped one
in and hit the play button. Quickly, it became glaringly apparent
that the quality of the film was grainy and there was this rap music
with very explicit lyrics that accompanied the highlights. Then he
handed me the “resume” that had been folded up and stuffed into
the jacket cover of the tape. It was on low quality pink paper, you
could barely make out the picture and several misspellings jumped off
the page. This guy could have been the next Eric Swann for all we
knew, but his presentation was so poor he wasn’t even taken
seriously by one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game.

I remember sitting at the pro
secretary’s desk when she would go to lunch during my time with the
Jets. There were stacks of resumes lying there from guys who had
attended various Ivy League Schools and they were just trying to get
an internship. Here I was, a dropout from a small community college
and I was working for the team. I had self-published a 350-page draft
guide and sent out three copies to every GM, head coach and personnel
director in the league by overnight mail. That’s when the call came
for me. Looking back, I can see now my draft book had less to do with
my evaluations and it had more to do with the intangibles they could
see in me, my passion, work ethic and attention to detail.

No matter if you are a player, an
aspiring scout or coach or if you have a dream of making it into the
NFL in some other capacity, you must get out of the box. You
absolutely must do something different to even get noticed in the
first place. Once at the Jets, an aspiring player literally jumped in
front of Parcells’ green Cadillac when he was leaving for the night
and was pulling out of the front security gate. While it’s possible
that this article may be monitored for quality control purposes, I’m
not necessarily advocating for taking things quite this far, but you
get the picture. It must also be noted that this particular player
indeed did get a workout with the Jets and he made it further than
most ever did. Come to think about it, the way the story goes, Vinny
Cerrato was waiting for Daniel Snyder in the parking lot when he
bought the team. Cerrato ended up running the Redskins for a decade.

When I worked in the league, it seemed
like every player and their brother sent in a VHS highlight tape
along with their resume. We must have had four hundred of the things
sitting in the corner of the war-room collecting dust.

For players, having an agent isn’t
all it’s cracked up to be either. Saying you have an agent while
sitting around the campfire sounds glamorous maybe to friends and
family, but the million-dollar question becomes, what’s your agent
doing for you? Most agents place most of their efforts on their
primary breadwinners, “Show me the money.” That’s the famous
line from the hit movie, Jerry Maguire. Agents get a certain
percentage and a certain percentage of nothing is nothing. Most
college seniors who are on the outside looking in don’t realize
this hereditary reality until they’re down the road and by then
another graduating class or two has strolled across the stage and has
been handed their diplomas.

Most teams don’t even trust highlight
tapes to begin with because NFL personnel people know that anyone can
be made to look like Superman. That’s why if you’re going to send
in film hoping someone will review it, your best bet is to send in a
complete game tape that shows the good, the bad and the ugly. Scott
Pioli, who was my boss at the Jets, taught me there’s a huge
difference between a highlight tape and what he liked to call, a
“player profile tape.” Pioli went on to become the NFL Executive
of the Decade for his work with the New England Patriots.

As a lot of players with NFL
aspirations are bombing buildings with their highlight tapes,
aspiring scouts and coaches are following suit by shooting in resumes
like paper airplanes. Traditional standard resumes rarely say
anything personal and they really don’t reveal much of anything
about a person’s intangibles or their characteristics. However, if
someone were still insistent on this ancient methodology, sending it
in a bright fluorescent yellow envelope would be a step in the right
direction.

If you go shopping the day after a
holiday, you can get a lot of things on clearance for 90% off of what
you would’ve dropped just two days prior. A principle along these
same lines apples to this. You must get out of the mainstream to give
yourself the very best chance. Getting into the NFL is not as
impossible as many believe it is.

Here are a few ideas that I pray will
help you on your journey:

Don’t send it in the regular
mail. While this is the cheapest and most traditional route, it’s
also the absolute easiest way not to get something into the hands of
whom it’s addressed to. The more official your package looks, the
better chance you have of getting it into the right hands. Overnight
mail costs more, but like anything else, it’s worth it.

Personalize your materials and
whatever you do, don’t misspell or write the person’s name
incorrectly. Don’t underestimate the importance of the
presentation. Your materials are a reflection of who you are. Having
a professional looking portfolio is a good idea. You won’t show up
to an interview wearing a pair of old tattered jeans and a ten-year
old t-shirt, so why should this be any different? Including a high
quality color photograph on the front cover of your presentation
goes a long way to moving the chains. It also makes your materials
more personal looking and it gets you away from being yet another
number. Once at the Jets, there was a player who sent a letter to
Dick Haley, our college scouting director at the time. He addressed
the letter, “Dear Mr. Dick.” I’m not joking.

Put yourself on paper. Sending in
a standard traditional resume is more overdone than the West Coast
Offense. Try writing a story; a biography about yourself. Write
about your dream, who you truly are and write about the good, the
bad and the ugly. A lot of aspiring NFL people don’t know this,
but teams care much more about your characteristics and intangibles
than anything else. Educational background is highly and grossly
overrated.

If all the other fish are swimming
upstream, swim in the opposite direction. Said in a different way,
if everyone else is sending stuff in during the spring, send your
stuff in during the fall. Get outside the hiring cycles. Instead of
being one of a thousand incoming packages, your package might be the
only one to come across someone’s desk when the leaves are
changing color.

Send your materials to every
person in the NFL from the interns to the owners and everyone
in-between. Most aspiring NFL people only focus on the decision
makers. However, if you focus on every one else who doesn’t get
much or any mail, suddenly one of your biggest fans could end up
being someone within the very building you are trying to get into.
More than likely they will make sure your package is hand delivered.
It’s also worth saying that a few of today’s assistants will be
tomorrow’s leaders. You might even try sending your materials to
the field goal kicker. He’s somebody who doesn’t get a lot of
mail unless he misses the game winning kick.

Focus on the idea that just comes
into your mind out of the blue, not what you try to think of. That’s
how it happened for me and I ended up getting hired to work on one
of the best staffs in league history while working at a bank. Ideas
just started popping into my mind out of nowhere and that’s the
plan I worked.

Put yourself in position. A couple
years ago I was at the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama and I was
rooming with a young up and coming coach. One day he seemed to doubt
if him being there was really going to help him get into the league
and he asked me what I thought. I told him, “Absolutely, you being
here is a great thing.” I explained that just him being at the
event and rubbing shoulders with the “who’s who” of the league
instantly put him ahead of the curve. I know of another guy who
wants to become a GM. He showed up at the owner’s meetings in
Orlando, Florida. No other aspiring GM’s were there. You’ll be
hearing his name announced as a GM in the future.

Pay very special attention to who
just naturally is brought onto your path. A lot of aspiring NFL
people would tend to pay very close attention if someone like Joe
Gibbs walked past them, but then they’d pay very little attention
to the significance of “Joe Blow” saying hello. My scouting
mentor, Lionel Vital, has taught me, “We are only five people away
from anyone in the world.” Lionel has worked with the top minds in
the game now for a quarter of a century and is widely regarded on
the inside as being the top talent evaluator in the league. Many
times in life, I’ve been amazed at who I run into. For example,
the brother of our pastor’s wife happens to be the scouting
director for the New York Yankees.

Pay very special attention to the
people who you naturally resonate with. A lot of aspiring NFL people
just want to get in, but getting in with who you resonate with will
give you your very best chance of succeeding. The NFL is filled with
people and people tend to like people most like themselves. People
tend to gravitate towards those when the chemistry is natural and it
just feels right. Hiring and promotions have far more to do with who
resonates with who, rather than pure ability alone.

Offer to work for free. This is
different. You have to get in the door and this just might prove to
be a way you can get in though the side window. If you can then
prove yourself, somebody will step up and do the right thing.

You are as unique as a snowflake, so
too should be your presentation. Don’t get discouraged, many people
who have accomplished great things have faced intense set backs,
rejection and they’ve walked the path less traveled. That’s what
prepared them. You may be tempted to think you are off track or
somehow behind schedule, but I’ll share with you my life verse.
Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his ways, but the Lord
orders his steps.” Keep going forward.

At one point Kurt Warner was bagging
groceries and he went on to quarterback the Rams in the Super Bowl.

Eric Mangini was coaching in Australia
for the Kew Colts before getting a chance with Bill Belichick and
going on to become an NFL head coach himself.

Charley Casserly was a high school
teacher who began as an intern with the Redskins. He stayed at the
YMCA for eight dollars a night. Casserly went on to become the GM of
both the Redskins and Texans and is now considered a league
ambassador and he’s one of the more coveted television
personalities in the game.

Daniel Synder was a college drop out
before building Synder Communications into an extremely successful
company, which he sold and used the proceeds towards the purchase of
the Redskins.

3 comments

Phenomenal article Daniel! Thank you for the great advice! It's been a dream of mine for so long to be part of an NFL organization. I am, like you, a football fanatic that dies a little bit about halfway through the football season because "oh man, football is almost over". Anyways, thanks again for the advice!

Great article! This line really resonated with me, "You may be tempted to think you are off track or somehow behind schedule, but I’ll share with you my life verse. Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plans his ways, but the Lord orders his steps.” Keep going forward." It's extremely easy to feel like you're at 3rd & 20 when really its just 1st & 10. I believe that there's really only two outcomes for me, either I quit or I become an NFL scout. Period. Thanks for the article Daniel.

I just found this article and I am very happy that I did. I am at a crossroads in my career life. I have been an electrician for most of my adult life, but at 43 years old I am ready for a change. I have always thought of pursuing a career in the NFL, lately focused on scouting. Anyone that knows me says I belong in Football. I am truly dedicated and have been for years without pay. I actually have a son that is a freshman in a D 2 Football program, and he will tell you that I was a huge, integral part in that happening for him. I have had to wait to pursue this due to having to provide for my family first. My wife and I started a family at young ages. I would just like to thank you for this article as well as the other that I had read prior to this one. I will thank you in person one day, for your helping me to succeed in my aspirations of working in Football. This I Promise !